Soft Tissue Damage (Deadly Hearts #2)

Chapter 1

Cullan

“ T ell me you’ve got something good. I’m going out of my fucking mind.”

Tyrant Mercer slides into the booth opposite me wearing a black suit and a hard, dangerous smile.

“Oh, it’s good, Cullan,” he replies. “You’re going to be drawing hearts around my name in your diary like a lovestruck fucking schoolgirl when I tell you about it.

But first I need to eat. What’s good here? ”

I impatiently push a menu toward him. “No idea. This place was your idea.”

Archer’s Diner is on the west side of the city, set a few blocks back from the shore.

Freezing wind is blowing in from the ocean.

All that’s visible through the windows are old brick factories, rusting steel bridges, and fog.

Lots and lots of fog. You wouldn’t think it’s nearly summer with how gloomy the sky is, but that’s Blackport for you.

Mercer and I have been associates for a long time, and friends ever since I designed and installed the one-of-a-kind security system that protects his house and surrounding labyrinth in Henson, the next city over.

A black-haired waitress hurries over, bringing us coffee and offering us a sweet, slightly flustered smile. Her eyes are sparkling blue, and she’s pretty in the way a woman is really fucking pretty when you’re freshly divorced and have been doing without for two years.

Or maybe she’s just really fucking pretty.

“To your divorce,” Mercer says, holding aloft his coffee cup.

Reluctantly, I turn my attention back to him. “To your marriage and being a father. How many kids is it now? Two, three?”

A smile tilts his lips. “Two. Barlow and Huck. They’re both perfect, like their mother.”

“Not crazy like their father?”

Mercer rubs his clean-shaven jaw. “Handsome like their father. How are your two?”

“Leon’s in college, and he’s doing so well.

That boy is whip-smart with figures. And Rosie’s picking up new words every day,” I tell him proudly.

I became a father for the second time at forty.

Rosie was the result of her mother and I trying to reconcile one last time.

It didn’t work, but I’m the father of the most beautiful fourteen-month-old girl in the world.

The attempted reconciliation was a mistake, but I don’t regret Rosie.

It’s corny, but she really is the sunshine of my life.

The only sunshine.

Christ, that’s sad.

Mercer eyes me curiously. “Just when you thought you were done with fatherhood, you had to start all over again with the diapers and sleepless nights. It must have been a shock.”

I wouldn’t call it a shock. When my now ex told me she was pregnant, there was no sinking feeling. If anything, I regret not having more children, but with someone I love.

“Not really. Are you over the diapers and no sleep already?” I ask Mercer. “Considering a vasectomy?”

Mercer frowns like I’ve insulted him. “Fuck no. I’m nowhere near done getting Vivienne pregnant.”

I lean back in my seat with a grin, admiring his spirit, and I catch the black-haired waitress’s eye for a moment.

She smiles tentatively back at me as she passes us with plates of club sandwiches and fries.

My eyes travel down her shapely legs. She’s about twenty, and lovely to look at.

I fall headfirst into a daydream about fucking her with the single-minded intention of making her come and getting her pregnant.

Hearing her cries of pleasure and feeling her nails in my back.

My cock pushed up tight inside of her as I burst apart.

I feel a surge of heat. Am I just horny? Is this conversation giving me baby fever? Maybe it’s a combination of both .

The waitress’s undone shoelace snags my attention. It’s been loose ever since we sat down. I’ve been wanting to catch her arm and point it out to her, but my ex-wife’s voice is ringing in my ears telling me I should focus on things in my own home before I try to fix everyone else’s problems.

The nape of my neck prickles in annoyance.

I like fixing people’s problems, but her binge drinking wasn’t something that either of us could fix.

She didn’t want it fixed. I wanted more children, and she preferred getting wiped out at weekend brunches with her friends, and then again at dinner.

I worried that she wasn’t interested in our son.

“Cullan, you’re so boring ,” she was fond of telling me.

When I tried to tell her about my clandestine side, she wasn’t interested in that either.

The next time the black-haired beauty passes our table, I lift my hand to get her attention. Before I can say anything, her lace catches against our booth where it’s bolted to the floor, and she trips. Thankfully she’s not holding any dishes.

I put out my hands to steady her, and she grabs them both with a gasp. “Careful…” I glance at her name badge. “Elena.”

“Oh, my goodness. Sorry, sir. Thank you.”

Her shoelace is stuck, and I slide out of my seat and onto my knees so I can pull it out.

“You don’t have to do that. I feel so silly.” Elena speaks in a breathless rush, clenching her Archer’s Diner branded apron with both hands. Her uniform is vaguely retro, with a zip-up dress and an A-line skirt, and it looks really cute on her.

“There you go.” Sitting back on my heels, I look at her untied sneaker. I should probably leave it alone and get to my feet, but I don’t want to. I can fix this for her. I grasp Elena’s shoelace ends, tighten them up, and tie them in a bow.

The young woman smiles down at me and tucks her hair behind her ear. “That’s so sweet of you, sir. I’ve been meaning to fix that for the last ten minutes, but I’m trying to catch up with my tables.”

The soft way she says sir has me smiling up at her. “We can wait. Take care of yourself first.”

As I stand up, her head tilts all the way back so she can keep looking me in the eye.

I tower over her. At a shade over six-foot-seven, I’m taller than just about everyone I meet.

Strangers sometimes ask to take photos with me.

I often have to duck through doorways. Elena doesn’t come up to the middle of my chest. I could engulf her wrist in my fist.

“I’ll try,” she promises. Her doll-like eyes are round and very blue. “Are you a police officer or a firefighter?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You remind me of one.”

The idea that I’m a cop is amusing, though I do cultivate a clean-cut look while my tattoos are covered. The tan sweater I’m wearing was chosen because it says security professional and dad of two . Even my ex never suspected what I really do .

“I own a home security business.” Security for dangerous assholes like Mercer.

“Installation and security consultations.” Consulting with criminals about how best to break into some of the most secure buildings in the country.

And I know how to charge for my work. Mercer’s custom security system in his home and insane hedge maze paid off my house.

“That’s amazing. I bet you make people feel safe all over Blackport.” Elena sounds wistful.

“I try,” I murmur, eyeing her curiously.

Why doesn’t Elena feel safe? People have told me I obsess over making my clients feel safe, but it’s important.

Men like Mercer deserve to feel safe, but it’s his wife and children who I’m really protecting.

While Vivienne Mercer was pregnant, Mercer asked me to audit his entire security system to protect his young family.

Once I was finished, a flower wouldn’t bloom in his garden without him knowing about it.

Mercer’s money was welcome, but the grateful smile on Vivienne’s face as she held baby Barlow in her arms, and her belly was round with another pregnancy, was what made the job worthwhile.

Shaking herself slightly, Elena pulls a notepad and a pencil out of her apron. “Sorry, I don’t usually talk so much. What can I get you both?”

I sit down, and Mercer and I order. Elena writes it down with a smile; a smile that’s just so damn sweet.

I glance out the windows of the diner. This is a shitty area full of bad men, and she probably leaves work in the dark to get to her car or the subway.

Blackport is dangerous. She shouldn’t be walking around alone at night.

“So. The job,” I prompt Mercer once Elena has taken our order to the kitchen.

“Let’s eat first.”

I sigh in exasperation, but I know it’s pointless to argue with him.

Ten minutes later, Elena puts a Reuben sandwich and fries in front of me, and pork chops in front of Mercer. The food is surprisingly good.

“How did you find this place, anyway?” I ask around a mouthful of corned beef and rye bread.

“Put a finger on the map. I never have important meetings in the same place twice.”

“Clever.”

I finish my sandwich and most of my fries, and then push the plate away. I wipe my fingers on the paper napkin and throw it aside. “All right. The job. Let’s hear it.”

Mercer isn’t done eating, but he puts down his knife and fork, and his eyes darken with malicious delight.

“Some associates of mine want a full infiltration plan done on a mansion in southeast Blackport.” Mercer describes an old but very secure house in one of the more upmarket areas of the city, and a number of stolen black market art pieces his associates want access to.

I like the sound of that. When you steal from other thieves, they can’t call the cops on you. An infiltration plan means these people want me to tell them, in great detail, how and where they can breach the house’s doors, walls, and security—which is my specialty.

“Who’s the job for?”

“I’ll get to that.”

I narrow my eyes. “You know there’s a long list of people I won’t work with in this city.” People who have gone back on their word to me. People who are irresponsible or have gotten others I care about hurt.

“Calm down, Arya Stark. It’s no one on your list,” he says, naming the Game of Thrones character who has a list of people she wants vengeance on.